COOPER COLE is pleased to present Across the Great Divide, a solo exhibition by Shawn Kuruneru. This marks the artist’s third solo exhibition with the gallery.
And it’s gone away in yesterday
Now I find myself on the mountainside
Where the rivers change direction
Across the Great Divide
-Kate Wolf
The title of the exhibition comes from a 1980’s song by folk musician Kate Wolf, in which she sings about time passing, reflecting on one’s life and accepting the nature of change— themes that constantly echo in the painter’s studio.
The relationship between paintings and music is present in Kuruneru’s body of work. Rhythm and movement are developed through repetition of gestures personal to the artists’ hand. Loud and gentle coloured shapes float across the canvas, creating a multi perspective experience inspired by 10th century Chinese landscape paintings—an anchor to his own Chinese heritage. Kuruneru’s all over composition can be traced to Ab-Ex artists such as Lee Krasner, but also unexpected connections like Carla Accardi and Simon Hantai.
Kuruneru paints his own visual language composed of colourful blocky geometric forms that oscillate between optical illusion and the material reality of acrylic absorbed into the weave of raw canvas. Using formal painting methods rooted in art history and autobiography, Kuruneru’s work is bold and playful, intimate and poetic.
Shawn Kuruneru (b. 1984, Canada). His work is in the collections of the Portland Museum of Art (Portland, Oregon), The National Gallery of Canada Library Collection (Toronto, Canada), CELINE (Paris, France). Solo exhibitions include Sunny NY (New York, NY), Bozidar Brazda/GALLERY (Woodstock, New York), Cooper Cole (Toronto, Canada), and KOKI ARTS (Tokyo, Japan). Group exhibitions include Skarstedt Gallery curated by David Salle (New York, NY), Mother Gallery (Beacon, New York), Night Gallery (Los Angeles, California), Ribordy Thetaz (Geneva, Switzerland), Rachel Uffner (New York, NY). Kuruneru collaborated with CELINE in 2019 on their Capsule Collection. His work has been featured in Artforum, The New York Times, Mousse Magazine, The Guardian and NY Arts Magazine, among others. Kuruneru currently lives and works in Montreal, Canada.
